Andrew Duffy

Co-Founder and CEO SparkPlug

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Andrew Duffy is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SparkPlug, a San Francisco company that solves a specific misalignment in retail. The person who most influences whether a customer buys a particular brand is often an hourly employee on the shop floor, and that employee has no financial stake in which brand they recommend. SparkPlug lets brands fund incentives paid directly to those frontline workers, and integrates with point-of-sale systems so that a sale can be attributed to the individual who made it and rewarded accordingly, through commissions, contests, goals and product education. The effect is to turn a manufacturer’s marketing spend into supplemental wages for hourly staff while giving the brand measurable return. Duffy co-founded the company in 2020 with Jacob Levin, its Chief Operating Officer, after reading behavioural economics at Harvard and working at Bridgewater Associates, and the intellectual lineage is visible in the product.

Career Highlights

• Co-founded SparkPlug in 2020 with Jacob Levin and has served as Chief Executive Officer since.
• Raised a 2.5 million US dollar seed round in autumn 2021 from TenOneTen Ventures, Jason Calacanis and Argonautic Ventures.
• Closed an 8 million US dollar Series A led by Lightbank, announced in November 2022.
• Grew the platform to more than 1,000 retailers and over 200 brands in the United States, with reported revenue growth of 2,310 percent between the seed and Series A rounds.
• Built point-of-sale integrations that attribute individual sales to individual employees, making brand-funded performance pay possible at the frontline.
• Directed more than 1 million US dollars in supplemental income to hourly workers.
• Used the Series A to expand into cosmetics, outdoor gear and dietary supplements, and into Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Latin America.
• Worked previously at Bridgewater Associates, studying labour economics and implementing investment theses grounded in research on human behaviour.

Professional Journey

Duffy studied behavioural economics at Harvard University, taking a BA in the subject, and then joined Bridgewater Associates. His work there involved labour economics and the translation of behavioural research into investment positions, which is an unusual preparation for founding a retail software company but a direct one: the recurring question in both is what people actually do when incentives change, as distinct from what they say they will do.

He co-founded SparkPlug in 2020 with Jacob Levin. The observation behind the company is that the hourly labour market in retail and restaurants is inefficient in a particular way. Frontline staff exert real influence over purchasing decisions at the point of sale, but they are paid an hourly wage that is entirely uncoupled from which products they move, while the brands who benefit spend heavily on advertising that reaches the customer far earlier in the process and far less reliably. SparkPlug closes that gap by letting brands fund incentives that flow directly to the employee, and by integrating with point-of-sale systems so that attribution is measured rather than assumed. Around that core the company layers gamified mechanics, contests, goals and product education, which serve both to motivate and to make staff better informed about what they are selling.

The model found early traction in cannabis retail, where brands compete for budtender recommendations and where conventional advertising is heavily restricted, and that focus features prominently in the company’s positioning. A 2.5 million US dollar seed round followed in autumn 2021, with TenOneTen Ventures, Jason Calacanis and Argonautic Ventures participating. Growth was rapid, and by the time Lightbank led an 8 million US dollar Series A announced in November 2022, SparkPlug reported working with more than 1,000 retailers and over 200 brands, with revenue up 2,310 percent since the seed round and over 1 million US dollars paid out to frontline workers as supplemental income.

The Series A was raised to broaden the business on two axes: into new product categories including cosmetics, outdoor gear and dietary supplements, and into new markets in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Latin America, alongside moving upmarket to larger enterprise customers and hiring in product and engineering. Duffy continues to lead the company from San Francisco.

Education

Harvard University

Bachelor of Arts, Behavioral Economics